Hike to launch local language keyboard in app

The second largest messaging app in the country by number of users will enable Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu on its messaging app, apart from EnglishGulveen Aulakh | ET Bureau | Updated: December 21, 2015, 20:07 IST

Hike, which is being launched globally, comes after six months of BSB buying a 49% equity stake in a Gurgaon-based mobile start-up Y2CF Digital.NEW DELHI: HikeMessenger will launch local language keyboards in its app, with the aim to increase its customer base from tier 2 and tier 3 cities in India where people use their native languages more than English. The India-bred messaging app will allow its 70 million users to use multiple languages to chat within Hike, without having to download separate language keyboard apps.

The second largest messaging app in the country by number of users will enable Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu on its messaging app, apart from English. Each of these languages will have dedicated keyboards, which means that people will be communicating in a native local language without the use of English throughout a communication.

“Localisation was one of the most demanded features from consumers,” Hike’s founder Kavin Mittal, son of Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder, chairman and group CEO of Bharti Enterprises, told ET. “There are a lot of first time internet users who are coming on to hike, and with hike they can easily jump on to local languages because they have never seen the internet before, very seamless experience,” he added.

Hike’s move follows the footsteps of Google which introduced Indic keyboards and features like Tap to Translate and Maps in Hindi, on the Android OS last week.

The search giant conceded that having local language capability will hasten the reach and uptake of the internet with the next billion people. Google has partnered with Intex and Lava to pre-install its local language keyboard, which will support 11 Indian languages, by early next year.

Micromax and Karbonn have already tied up with Firstouch and SwiftKey, respectively, the latter supporting 22 local Indian languages, to tap millions of future users who use local languages for communication.

Starting Wednesday, the language-enabled version of Hike will be bundled in the latest update, which, which leaves out the hassle of downloading separate local language keyboard apps. The update will be limited to Android, while those for other operating systems will follow next year, Mittal added.

Users can swipe across the space bar to change keyboards back and forth between two or more languages including English. Hike has partnered for the keyboard technology but a lot of work has been done in-house. The keyboards also support predictive text which prompts local language words while typing.

“We are expecting uptake to be quite quick don’t be surprised to see millions people using the keyboards in the first week of the launch,” Mittal added.

The company is gearing up for another round of fund raising after six months, Mittal added. Hike has so far raised $86 million from Tiger Global and Bharti SoftBank, the joint venture between Japan’s SoftBank and Bharti Enterprises. Launched in December 2012, Hike users today send over 30 billion messages per month.

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